This is only 1,200 words. Why, even some Australians should manage to stick around to the end of it.

As I mentioned before, photos appearing on Sunday with my thoughts are gathered and presented in THIS SmugMug Gallery. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you can also click on the photos for a larger version or check out the gallery at the end of the post. This is another one of those where I post an original and then variations of the same, one or maybe more. Except for the above; that’s a straggler from another post.

It’s Sunday, so no exercising today. I’m still sweating, though, but with two fans on me, it’s somewhat under control. FYI, I find snacking is a good way to counter sweating.

Readers might have noticed that I’ve left my opinion posts slide a bit. Oh, sure, I’ve dropped comments here and there, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a dedicated post about “things.”

Truthfully, I lost much of the stomach for it. That, plus there’s enough stuff going on every hour of every day of every week of every month that if I allotted time to comment on it, that’s all I’d be doing. Mind you, it’s important. Oh, yes, I have opinions on it all. But, there’s also tremendous frustration.

I’m a naïve and idealistic fool, I am. I expect the Right Wing Media (RWM) to spin the shit we hear into nutritious compost for consumption by willing right-leaning mental vegetables. And, yes, I now expect the Left Wing Media (LHM) to provide the same for desperately willing left-leaning mental vegetables to eagerly gobble down. I don’t know what happened to just Plain Media. I would like just a reporting of the news, but that’s near impossible to find. What you get are opinions.

We can certainly debate the role of the media, and I can find thoughtful, balanced, and pointed commentary on current events . . . but, rarely on cable news . . . or on Facebook, or on Twitter, or on YouTube.

Actually, no; if you look, you can occasionally find decent and balanced clips on YouTube. Usually, those clips are buried in a mountain other clips that are culled, edited, and arranged to mislead and misinform.

But, some things shouldn’t be that difficult. We, the Right, the Left, and the shrinking Center should be able to agree on broad topics. To wit, you’d think White Supremacists and the Nazi Party would find broad condemnation across the board. Even more so when they show up at protests wielding homemade shields and bludgeoning instruments.

We should all be disgusted when — in what I can only assume as a symbolic and nostalgic nod to times gone by — they march through the streets at night carrying torches.

I mean, the bar seems set so low that it seems impossible to disagree. And yet . . .

That cartoon is from last year — before Trump was elected president — and referenced his bombastic and insulting rhetoric. No, wait; that’s sugarcoating it; it referenced his crude and classless language and demeanor. It’s not, then, all that surprising that it can also be broadly applied to his comportment after becoming President.

For them who opted to live in a cave, today I refer to Trump’s reluctance to specifically call out White Supremacists and Klu Klux Klan members and Nazis . . . but, I repeat myself.

I forced myself to watch his statement — reluctant, I was, since my tenuous hold on the English language suffers whenever I listen to Trump speak — because I wanted an unfiltered access to what he said.

So, here’s my unfiltered opinion. The man thinks that he should cater to his base (he did) and that a large part of his base consists of violent, xenophobic, racist, misogynous, white supremacist Klan members who think the Nazis had some good ideas.

Read that again . . . if you are a Trump voter and supporter, the President thinks that condemning Nazis and Klan members might offend you. Congratulations.

Let me turn a moment to the predictable responses from the RWM and LWM.

The LWM and left-leaning individuals jumped all over the President accusing him of actually being a Nazi sympathizer if not an actual member of the KKK. This, because he did not condemn them outright.

The RWM and right-leaning individuals responded by claiming it was a measured response and that the President is right in saying both sides engage in unprovoked violence. Besides, they say, Obama and Hillary were both reluctant to name Jihadists — or, radical Muslims; take your pick — as responsible for terrorist attacks and did so consistently and in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Stay with me here because there is some merit (along with massive distortions) to both arguments.

I could go into long and convoluted sentences with lots of caveats and nuanced statements, but I’ll instead just present some bullet points. If anyone wants to discuss them in depth, feel free to comment below.

So, here goes nothing:

The right wing nuts have a point in saying that Obama and Hillary and Liberals in general, consistently failed to identify the culprits of terrorist attacks as Islamic terrorists or blame domestic groups for other acts of violence.Note: you can say Islamic Terrorists without accusing all Muslims just as you can say Christian Terrorists without accusing all Christians. Apparently, both Obama and Hillary are unaware of this.

The right wing nuts also have a point in saying that there are many instances of left-wing-initiated violence, often, unprovoked.Note: in my view, aside from his actual election, that’s one of the saddest things of this Trump Era; I could sit here and list many, many instances where the Left, in general, has acted in a manner unbefitting the rational beings they purport to be. Sad, that.

The left wing nuts have a point in saying that a failure to call out the specific culprits is tantamount to supporting them.Note: posts on extremist websites support this interpretation. They see Trump as one of their own. They also understand that if Trump subsequently does condemn them, it’ll be for appearance sake and that he won’t mean it. Their words, not mine.

The left wing nuts have a point in saying that Trump’s lack of clear and stern castigation will only embolden these radical elements to more and possibly lethal violence.Note: that is similar to claims made by the RWM when Obama failed to castigate rhetoric and incidents involving groups like BLM and NOI; incidents that may have resulted in cops getting killed. Their words, not mine.

Each side now condemns the very things they each excused as late as October of last year. And, of course, each now excuses the very things they condemned as late as October of last year

But, I will say this about Trump’s statement . . . there’s no excuse for the lack of castigation of white supremacists, KKK members, and Nazis.

One might charitably argue Obama’s and Hillary’s reluctance to implicate Islam in the terrorist attacks were poorly executed attempts at not maligning the majority of Muslims who had no involvement in the attacks. Still wrong — and I think it had the opposite effect on the population at large — but there’s at least some logic there, however flawed it might have been.

One cannot make the same argument about White Supremacist groups, the KKK, and the Nazis. There aren’t peaceful and tolerant factions of those groups advocating reasoned discourse. Or, if there are, they are well concealed.

Therefore, there is no political, social, or any kind of gain to be made in avoiding calling them out for their views and for their actions. There’s no obvious penalty to pay in calling them out.

Unless, as I stated above, one assumes — as apparently, President Trump does — that a large portion of Trump voters and supporters are sympathetic toward White Supremacist groups, the KKK, and Nazis. Again, to Trump’s supporters, congratulations; that’s what Trump thinks of you.

If there’s another reason for his vague evasions, I’d like to hear it.

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Here’s the gallery of the above photos:

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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16 Responses to Sunday with my thoughts – it seems a no-brainer

I’m not sure what’s worse – the president (no capital p for him) or the people that support (and continue to support) him. I don’t mean to offend anyone but I calls ’em as I sees ’em. Nice photos, btw.

The most charitable thing to assume — and probably not far off the mark — is a marriage of convenience.

Unfortunately, there’s also the inconvenient truth that he was duly elected. Unless we want to upend laws and how our country functions, this we must suffer through. I have some opinions about that as well because I don’t buy the idea that half the country was duped by this guy or that voters were duped by propaganda into voting for a person who is — by any reasonable metrics — and awful human being.

Did some of that occur? Probably. Did it sway the election by enough votes to make a difference? Maybe.

But, there are actual concerns that we will either address as a country or will have us locked in a perpetual civil and political war. What bothers me most is that I can’t find a potential candidate on either side to carry anything I might even consider a flag I could follow.

We are being sold the politics of extremes and right now I find both extremes odious and without merit, and I refuse to play the “lesser evil” game. Yes, I’ll be writing about that soon too.

Trump’s favorite son-in-law is Jewish and married to his favorite daughter who converted to Judaism. Let me be clear about the contempt I have for Trump as I point out that I’m then hard-pressed to sit here and claim Trump is a Nazi sympathizer and look at with extreme skepticism toward them who would say so.

This is another thing I’ll probably write about if for no other reason than to get my head around all the nuances of the situation we — as a country — find ourselves in; we have split into polarized factions who happily paint opposing sides with broad brush strokes of outrageous accusations.

Or, at least, they would be outrageous accusations to most people were it not for a minority of very vocal people who forcibly support and endorse those accusations and demand everyone else do the same. Many of these people are either in the public eye or in the media themselves.

If we don’t get a handle on this practice of wearing blinders so that we only see and hear what we like to see and hear, we’re in for a world of hurt.

The photos are an interesting addendum to your thoughts and words. And, although I’ve cut back on reading and posting for time’s sake, I tend towards keeping your insights and viewpoints, (and tips and ideas and readings….) at the forefront – always perceptive and provocatively interesting, and often inclusive of the insanities we face every day – both media wise, and with neighbors and relatives, and former/new friends, all of us caught up in the divisiveness of our time. M :-)

But, you know what? It’s not the difference in opinions that bothers me. It’s the belief by each side that they are absolutely and in all accounts “in the right” and that anyone not fully 100% agreeing with them (whichever side you pick) is automatically considered the enemy. We’re now at the point where we’re no longer allowed a spectrum of ideas, a nuanced understanding of complex issues and events.

The reason families, friends, and the whole country are split is because loud voices demand absolutism from everyone. The moment you say “I agree in general, but –” you are immediately shouted down with “But? BUT!?! THERE IS NO BUT! WE MUST NOT GIVE AN INCH!”

You can see this on both sides to the point that in public, people risk physical harm for expressing their views.

Being the Australian presumably referred to in the first sentence, I think it’s time you had the word counter checked, more like 12K than 1200 words, and as for this load of tosh
“since my tenuous hold on the English language”
since when did you acquire said hold on the English language?

Yes on the identity unmasking, and as for the numbers, I’m using the decimal numeral system and the count comes in very close to 1,200 words.

Perhaps Australia is using some metric numeral system that employs a factor of 10, but I can’t be held responsible for every backwater place that’s incapable of properly count stuff.

I tell you what you could do . . . you could read every tenth word and then you’d be OK. Well, not OK, maybe, but at least you’d be in the word ballpark.

As for my hold on the English language, I have a certificate from my time at GM that says I successfully completed their courses on effective communication. Therefore, in answer to your question, I’ll say 1978. Since then, I dare say I struggled from exposure to various bastardizations of the American language, like, for instance, British. Come to think of it, I do equate Trump-speak with British . . . both use weird pronunciations of common words aimed, no doubt, at obfuscation and confusion.

Your flower photos are divine! :-) I especially enjoy the purple flowers and the pink flowers! Those are such happy colors to me! :-)

What is going on in our country is hellish. :-(

I like when you share your opinions, Emilio. You share the things I’m thinking about (and feeling), but in a much better way than I can. You do it intelligently and your concern comes through in your words. Thank you!

Thank you, diem3. You’re one of the few — if not the only one — that enjoys the breadth and width of my blog activity.

I’m about to dive back into the opinion posts — mostly for my own benefit — but perhaps I can make some people consider more than the canned and often narrow views of complicated issues. Because of it, I aim to separate photo posts from opinion posts, much like I used to do.

Good! Often you express things that I want to share with other people and I’m not sure how to/what to say, so by reading your words I can figure out what I need to say. I even give you credit! A few times I’ve read your blog to a best friend of mine (who shares similiar opinions) and he appreciates your words, too. I’ve given him your blogsite-name/link, but he hasn’t come by yet. He’s not much of a blogger these days.

Yes, we must keep talking and sharing…we never know when something we say might give people a new perspective, or get them thinking differently, etc.